Self-study
The senator has long held to the general principle that Support no true work of art is obscene, and thus that Conclusion there is no conflict between the need to encourage free artistic expression and the need to protect the sensibilities of the public from obscenity. ████ ██████████ █████ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ████████████████ ███ ███████ █████████ █████████ ███ █████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████
Flaw: Circular Reasoning
The senator concludes that there's no conflict between free artistic expression and avoiding obscenity. This is based on a principle that no true work of art is obscene, even though certain artworks are generally thought to be obscene. The senator nonetheless supports the principle by claiming that if these works are obscene, they are not really works of art.
The flaw here is in the senator's support for the principle that no true work of art is obscene. To defend this principle, the senator appeals to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, a form of circular reasoning. The senator claims that no artworks are obscene, and then when presented with obscene artworks, simply claims they aren't true artworks. The support only makes sense if the conclusion is already taken to be true.
8.
The senator’s reasoning contains which ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████
a
It seeks to ████████ ██ █████████ ██████ ████ ████████████ ██████
The senator doesn't particularly rely on an appeal to emotion, so (A) does not describe the flaw.
b
It contains an ████████ ██████████████
The senator's argument uses circular reasoning, but it's not internally contradictory. If the senator claimed that no true artwork was obscene while accepting that some artworks were obscene, that would be a contradiction. But the senator just says that any obscene work isn't really an artwork. That's circular, but internally consistent.
c
It relies on ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████████
The senator doesn't make an appeal to authority, whether the senator's own or anyone else's. The same argument could be made by anyone; the speaker just happens to be a senator, but that doesn't play into the argument.
d
It assumes what ██ █████ ██ ██████████
In other words, it uses circular reasoning, which is exactly the flaw. The argument relies on "no true Scotsman" fallacy, a specific form of circular reasoning where any work that doesn't match the senator's definition is excluded from the category of "true" artworks, just because it doesn't match the definition.
e
It attempts to ███████ █ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██████████████
The senator doesn't rely on irrelevant considerations; the status of alleged obscene works is certainly relevant to a principle about whether true artworks can be obscene. The senator just doesn't fully consider those considerations, instead resorting to circular reasoning.